Blatant military coup in Bolivia

[Jokodo]

While not impossible, I think at least in the census done during Morales's presidency (2012), that's pretty improbable. I think they'd be much more likely proud than ashamed. Shame might be more likely among some mixed-raced people trying to pass as White (I think being proud or ashamed makes no sense, since it's not an achievement or a fault to be a member of a community one has not chosen, but people often do seem to be either proud or ashamed of belonging to some such community).

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but what you write here sounds really naive and idealistic. Five centuries of being put down and shamed for who they are aren't going to be magically undone by five years of a president they've never met, in a faraway capital where they've never been, telling them (in Spanish no less!) that they should no longer be ashamed - not under the best of circumstances, and certainly not when the local authority figures from former land lords to police, priests and teachers, are still the same old people, many of which holding and expressing the same old prejudices (though maybe slightly less explicitly now that the government has pledged to combat discrimination). This simply isn't how people work in the real world.

You're right that being proud *or* ashamed for who you are makes little sense, but that never stopped people either.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but what you write here sounds really naive and idealistic. Five centuries of being put down and shamed for who they are aren't going to be magically undone by five years of a president they've never met, in a faraway capital where they've never been, telling them (in Spanish no less!) that they should no longer be ashamed - not under the best of circumstances, and certainly not when the local authority figures from former land lords to police, priests and teachers, are still the same old people, many of which holding and expressing the same old prejudices (though maybe slightly less explicitly now that the government has pledged to combat discrimination). This simply isn't how people work in the real world.

You're right that being proud *or* ashamed for who you are makes little sense, but that never stopped people either.

No one has ever been put down or shamed for five centuries, as no one has ever lived for nearly as long. Still, why do you think people would (in general, not exceptional cases) feel ashamed of membership in their own tribe because some people from other tribes treat them badly? More likely they would feel morally outraged and would hate the people of those other tribes (those who treat them badly, and probably also those that do not), even if they would shut up out of fear of retribution. It's not the same as people who are the descendants perhaps of the members of a tribe, but the tribe itself no longer exists.

Again, I'm not saying this is impossible to have happened in Bolivia, but I do not see any good evidence supporting it (not to mention the census is anonymous), so I see no good reason to go against what they report.

Also, Morales was not just someone talking from a faraway capital - not at first and for many years, anyway; later he may have become that. He was the leader of a movement that championed an "Andean" culture that encompassed the different tribes in Bolivia. It was with that platform that he won the elections (three times), with massive support from Bolivians classified as "indigenous" (i.e., a synonym in Spanish); it seems that most voted for him. If they were ashamed of their tribe, why would they vote for someone championing the very things they thought was shameful?

 

[Jokodo]

I'm not sure why we are still having this discussion. I objected to Loren's claim that the indígenas and/or Morales' supporters (it's not quite clear which one he meant, possibly he thinks the two terms are interchangeable) are a "small subset" of Bolivia's population. We seem to be in agreement that this is not so, on either reading. In my reply, I wanted to point out two things: That there are many more people than he seems to believe who identify as indígenas, and many more people he would probably classify as indígenas who self-identify as mestizos. As far as I can tell, we are again in agreement about both of these points.

We furthermore seem to be in agreement that, using the kind of definition commonly applied in the US, a vast majority of Bolivians could potentially qualify as indígenas; that the distinction between self identified indígenas and self identified mestizos is a social and cultural one as much as a genealogical one; I guess, though we haven't explicitly discussed, that we are probably also in agreement that there are going to be few if any indígenas without a trace of European ancestry (after 500 years of handsome travelling merchants, 500 years of city outcasts taking refuge in the mountains, 500 years of rapey land owners...), and that some self identified indígenas probably have more European ancestry than the average self identified mestizo, and vice versa; and that a second generation city dweller who only ever spoke Spanish in the home but heard some Quechua from his grandparents is much more likely to self-identify as mestizo without being genetically any more European than his cousins who stayed back on the land and who call themselves indígenas.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but what you write here sounds really naive and idealistic. Five centuries of being put down and shamed for who they are aren't going to be magically undone by five years of a president they've never met, in a faraway capital where they've never been, telling them (in Spanish no less!) that they should no longer be ashamed - not under the best of circumstances, and certainly not when the local authority figures from former land lords to police, priests and teachers, are still the same old people, many of which holding and expressing the same old prejudices (though maybe slightly less explicitly now that the government has pledged to combat discrimination). This simply isn't how people work in the real world.

You're right that being proud *or* ashamed for who you are makes little sense, but that never stopped people either.

No one has ever been put down or shamed for five centuries, as no one has ever lived for nearly as long. Still, why do you think people would (in general, not exceptional cases) feel ashamed of membership in their own tribe because some people from other tribes treat them badly? More likely they would feel morally outraged and would hate the people of those other tribes (those who treat them badly, and probably also those that do not), even if they would shut up out of fear of retribution. It's not the same as people who are the descendants perhaps of the members of a tribe, but the tribe itself no longer exists.

Again, I'm not saying this is impossible to have happened in Bolivia, but I do not see any good evidence supporting it (not to mention the census is anonymous), so I see no good reason to go against what they report.

Also, Morales was not just someone talking from a faraway capital - not at first and for many years, anyway; later he may have become that. He was the leader of a movement that championed an "Andean" culture that encompassed the different tribes in Bolivia.

He was that to the people actively involved in that movement. To everyone else is a different question.

It was with that platform that he won the elections (three times), with massive support from Bolivians classified as "indigenous" (i.e., a synonym in Spanish); it seems that most voted for him. If they were ashamed of their tribe, why would they vote for someone championing the very things they thought was shameful?

First of all, there is no contradiction between wanting to be someone else and wanting those in power to understand what it is like being you. Secondly, even if there were, people hold contradictory beliefs all the time.

Anyway I don't see the relevance. It seems we both agree that being "indígena" is a social phenomenon more than anything else, and there is no objective truth as to whether someone "really" is indígena beyond their self-identification. My whole point is that the numbers of self-identified indígenas provide a very low estimate of the numbers Loren would probably classify as such.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I'm not sure why we are still having this discussion. I objected to Loren's claim that the indígenas and/or Morales' supporters (it's not quite clear which one he meant, possibly he thinks the two terms are interchangeable) are a "small subset" of Bolivia's population. We seem to be in agreement that this is not so, on either reading. In my reply, I wanted to point out two things: That there are many more people than he seems to believe who identify as indígenas, and many more people he would probably classify as indígenas who self-identify as mestizos. As far as I can tell, we are again in agreement about both of these points.

Yes, that seems to be so (with the caveat that I do not know why they would be called "indígenas" in the first place, rather than "Aymara", or "Quechua", or whatever tribe or nation they are from, but that's another issue).

We furthermore seem to be in agreement that, using the kind of definition commonly applied in the US, a vast majority of Bolivians could potentially qualify as indígenas; that the distinction between self identified indígenas and self identified mestizos is a social and cultural one as much as a genealogical one; I guess, though we haven't explicitly discussed, that we are probably also in agreement that there are going to be few if any indígenas without a trace of European ancestry (after 500 years of handsome travelling merchants, 500 years of city outcasts taking refuge in the mountains, 500 years of rapey land owners...), and that some self identified indígenas probably have more European ancestry than the average self identified mestizo, and vice versa; and that a second generation city dweller who only ever spoke Spanish in the home but heard some Quechua from his grandparents is much more likely to self-identify as mestizo without being genetically any more European than his cousins who stayed back on the land and who call themselves indígenas.

Yes, pretty much.

He was that to the people actively involved in that movement. To everyone else is a different question.

There are different degrees of involvement, though. Even many people who did not, say, take part directly in road blocks were eager to vote for him in the elections.

First of all, there is no contradiction between wanting to be someone else and wanting those in power to understand what it is like being you.
Secondly, even if there were, people hold contradictory beliefs all the time.

There is a difference between wanting to be someone else and feeling shame for what one is. Wanting to be someone else might be because one thinks that being that sort of someone else is better in some way or another, but without thinking there is any shame in being what one is. For example, a person might want to be younger, more intelligent, more attractive, richer, etc. - or an angel, or some other sort of entity with superhuman powers - without thinking that what they are is shameful.

But that aside, I'm not sure how what you suggest would work. For example, let's say a person believes speaking Quechua is shameful (variant: having Quechua as her first language is shameful). She is - like most Boivians - fluent in Spanish. Then, if she has children, it would seem to make no sense to teach them Quechua (variant: making Quechua their first language). It would only make sense to teach them Spanish but not Quechua, so that they will not engage in the same shameful behavior she engaged in before (variant: to make Spanish their first language).

It seems that the more widespread the shame, the lower the percentage of Quechua speakers in the following generations. Those new generations would not feel ashamed for speaking Quechua (variant: having Quechua as their first language), since, well, they wouldn't speak it. What mechanism are you proposing to keep passing the shame from one generation to the next, given that Spanish is available to them?

Again, I'm not saying this cannot have happened. I'm saying it looks improbable.

Anyway I don't see the relevance. It seems we both agree that being "indígena" is a social phenomenon more than anything else, and there is no objective truth as to whether someone "really" is indígena beyond their self-identification. My whole point is that the numbers of self-identified indígenas provide a very low estimate of the numbers Loren would probably classify as such.

Now that you put it that way, it seems to me that we do not agree on the first part, though this is probably due to a disagreement about language.

Rather, I think it depends on the case. Take, for example, Quechua. If I claim ot be Quechua, I make a false claim. Now, suppose in the future I come to believe that I am Quechua, so I sincerely say so (that might result from severe brain damage or something like that). I would then be mistaken. So, there is an objective fact of the matter (in the usual sense of the word) as to whether I'm Quechua: I am not.

And there are people who are Quechua - and even if we assumed there aren't any today, there certainly were some when Europeans arrived in what is now Bolivia.

Granted, there are also people for which there is no objective fact of the matter as to whether they are Quechua.

However, that is a consequence of the imprecision of human languages, and it applies to pretty much every word we use in colloquial languages to describe the world around us (at least in hypothetical scenarios, if not in real ones). For example, take the word "child". As before, if I claim to be a child, I make a false claim, etc. There is an objective fact of the matter as to whether I'm a child: I'm not. There is also an objective fact of the matter as to whether Prince George is a child: he is. But one can find people for which there is no objective fact of the matter, as the word "child" is not precise enough (in colloquial language, at least). Or take the word "lion". There is an objective fact of the matter in the case of some individuals. Even assuming that for every living individual animal, there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether it's a lion (debatable, but let's say), if we start moving to the past one second at a time, we'll find individuals for which this does not hold, and so on.

So, while I would say is that given the set of living humans, "Quechua" is less precise than "lion", whether there is an objective fact of the matter seems to depend on the case, and that is a common property of words in pretty much every human language.

 

[Jokodo]

Yes, that seems to be so (with the caveat that I do not know why they would be called "indígenas" in the first place, rather than "Aymara", or "Quechua", or whatever tribe or nation they are from, but that's another issue).




Yes, pretty much.

He was that to the people actively involved in that movement. To everyone else is a different question.

There are different degrees of involvement, though. Even many people who did not, say, take part directly in road blocks were eager to vote for him in the elections.

First of all, there is no contradiction between wanting to be someone else and wanting those in power to understand what it is like being you.
Secondly, even if there were, people hold contradictory beliefs all the time.

There is a difference between wanting to be someone else and feeling shame for what one is. Wanting to be someone else might be because one thinks that being that sort of someone else is better in some way or another, but without thinking there is any shame in being what one is. For example, a person might want to be younger, more intelligent, more attractive, richer, etc. - or an angel, or some other sort of entity with superhuman powers - without thinking that what they are is shameful.

But that aside, I'm not sure how what you suggest would work. For example, let's say a person believes speaking Quechua is shameful (variant: having Quechua as her first language is shameful). She is - like most Boivians - fluent in Spanish. Then, if she has children, it would seem to make no sense to teach them Quechua (variant: making Quechua their first language). It would only make sense to teach them Spanish but not Quechua, so that they will not engage in the same shameful behavior she engaged in before (variant: to make Spanish their first language).

It seems that the more widespread the shame, the lower the percentage of Quechua speakers in the following generations. Those new generations would not feel ashamed for speaking Quechua (variant: having Quechua as their first language), since, well, they wouldn't speak it. What mechanism are you proposing to keep passing the shame from one generation to the next, given that Spanish is available to them?

Again, I'm not saying this cannot have happened. I'm saying it looks improbable.

Anyway I don't see the relevance. It seems we both agree that being "indígena" is a social phenomenon more than anything else, and there is no objective truth as to whether someone "really" is indígena beyond their self-identification. My whole point is that the numbers of self-identified indígenas provide a very low estimate of the numbers Loren would probably classify as such.

Now that you put it that way, it seems to me that we do not agree on the first part, though this is probably due to a disagreement about language.

Rather, I think it depends on the case. Take, for example, Quechua. If I claim ot be Quechua, I make a false claim. Now, suppose in the future I come to believe that I am Quechua, so I sincerely say so (that might result from severe brain damage or something like that). I would then be mistaken. So, there is an objective fact of the matter (in the usual sense of the word) as to whether I'm Quechua: I am not.

And there are people who are Quechua - and even if we assumed there aren't any today, there certainly were some when Europeans arrived in what is now Bolivia.

Granted, there are also people for which there is no objective fact of the matter as to whether they are Quechua.

However, that is a consequence of the imprecision of human languages, and it applies to pretty much every word we use in colloquial languages to describe the world around us (at least in hypothetical scenarios, if not in real ones). For example, take the word "child". As before, if I claim to be a child, I make a false claim, etc. There is an objective fact of the matter as to whether I'm a child: I'm not. There is also an objective fact of the matter as to whether Prince George is a child: he is. But one can find people for which there is no objective fact of the matter, as the word "child" is not precise enough (in colloquial language, at least). Or take the word "lion". There is an objective fact of the matter in the case of some individuals. Even assuming that for every living individual animal, there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether it's a lion (debatable, but let's say), if we start moving to the past one second at a time, we'll find individuals for which this does not hold, and so on.

So, while I would say is that given the set of living humans, "Quechua" is less precise than "lion", whether there is an objective fact of the matter seems to depend on the case, and that is a common property of words in pretty much every human language.

Ok, let me rephrase. Setting aside hypothetical scenarios like you or I suddenly identifying as Quechua for no apparent reason: among the actual living people of Bolivia who do identify as eg Quechua, most could just as plausibly identify as something else, ie mestizo and we couldn't tell them they are wrong for doing so. Among the actual living people not identifying as Quechua but rather mestizo, many could plausibly identify as Quechua the same way. Among 99.9% of actual living people of Bolivia for whom there was ever any question whether they'd identify as Quechua or not, their self identification remains the only thing to go by. So the number of census respondents who identify as Quechua does not equate to some objective truth about the precise number of Quechua - since identity is fluid and to some degree arbitrary, there is no such thing as *the* one true number of Quechua. It doesn't even provide an (upper or lower) limit. Given however the dynamics of racial identity/ indigenity (is that a word?) in Bolivia as compared to the USA, the number of self-identifying Quechua is predicted to be much lower than the number of people Loren would probably intuitively classify as such (and neither is a "small subset"). One piece of evidence to support this conclusion is the fact that many people who do not identify as Quechua do speak the Quechua language, even alongside Spanish which they may consider their primary language. While there may be a few people who made a conscious choice top learn it as a second language, the vast majority in this category picked it up because if their continuing strong connections to Quechua communities (or in many cases, close relatives).

It's this something you can agree to?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Ok, let me rephrase. Setting aside hypothetical scenarios like you or I suddenly identifying as Quechua for no apparent reason: among the actual living people of Bolivia who do identify as eg Quechua, most could just as plausibly identify as something else, ie mestizo and we couldn't tell them they are wrong for doing so.

Maybe; I don't really know whether that is a majority of those identifying as Quechua. More precisely, I agree that in a sense we could not (properly) tell them that they are wrong, as we do not have enough information about them. But that is a different question from whether there is a fact of the matter as to whether they are Quechua. I don't know whether the majority falls into that category, so I take no stance on this one.

Among the actual living people not identifying as Quechua but rather mestizo, many could plausibly identify as Quechua the same way. Among 99.9% of actual living people of Bolivia for whom there was ever any question whether they'd identify as Quechua or not, their self identification remains the only thing to go by.

Maybe. I don't know how you get that percentage. Granting that your number is correct, I would be inclined to say that rather than go by self-identification, one should reject the classification altogether as too imprecise for the set of people one is trying to classify.

Moreover, that self-identification seems to lead to confusion, as people who self-identify as Quechua (or as X, for pretty much any X) seem to believe there is an objective fact of the matter; at least, in my experience most people would debate and try to make a case if someone disagrees with their self-identification, rather than say there is no objective fact of the matter.

So the number of census respondents who identify as Quechua does not equate to some objective truth about the precise number of Quechua - since identity is fluid and to some degree arbitrary, there is no such thing as *the* one true number of Quechua.

I tend to agree with that, because it seems probable to me that there is no objective fact of the matter as to how many Quechua there are.

It doesn't even provide an (upper or lower) limit. Given however the dynamics of racial identity/ indigenity (is that a word?) in Bolivia as compared to the USA, the number of self-identifying Quechua is predicted to be much lower than the number of people Loren would probably intuitively classify as such (and neither is a "small subset").

While I'm not an expert on Loren's beliefs, that probabilistic assessment would be unwarranted on the basis of the available information. You seem to base your assessment on Loren's nationality (e.g.,"And that aside, Loren is from the USA where sometimes p people with one native grandparent are counted as Native Americans, and where most native languages are moribund (for example, Lakota is said to have 2000 speakers out of over 100000 registered members if the Lakota tribe). By that definition, close to 90% of Bolivians are indigenous. ".

However, in the particular case of Loren, we can obtain from his posts better information than from his nationality. In particular, Loren rejects the rule in question. For example (one can find more posts),

https://talkfreethought.org/showthr...-Blows-His-Top&p=735096&viewfull=1#post735096
https://talkfreethought.org/showthr...ntity-Politics&p=448930&viewfull=1#post448930

I'm not sure how he would make the classifications, if he were to see the self-identifying people in question, so I take no stance on this one.

 

[PyramidHead]

For those who subscribe to the Bezos Bugle, this is the equivalent of publishing defamatory and false statements on the Sunday front page and a page 9 retraction in Thursday's edition.

New research shows there was no fraud in Bolivia's October elections, which Evo won.

I can't access the article, so I'm posting it for those who can.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

For those who subscribe to the Bezos Bugle, this is the equivalent of publishing defamatory and false statements on the Sunday front page and a page 9 retraction in Thursday's edition.

New research shows there was no fraud in Bolivia's October elections, which Evo won.

I can't access the article, so I'm posting it for those who can.

That article shows that the basis for the allegation doesn't stand up, it doesn't rule out other types of fraud.

 

[PyramidHead]

For those who subscribe to the Bezos Bugle, this is the equivalent of publishing defamatory and false statements on the Sunday front page and a page 9 retraction in Thursday's edition.

New research shows there was no fraud in Bolivia's October elections, which Evo won.

I can't access the article, so I'm posting it for those who can.

That article shows that the basis for the allegation doesn't stand up, it doesn't rule out other types of fraud.

Cool, so since the original basis was bullshit the other types probably are too, and the current coup government should be dismantled

 

[ZiprHead]

For those who subscribe to the Bezos Bugle, this is the equivalent of publishing defamatory and false statements on the Sunday front page and a page 9 retraction in Thursday's edition.

New research shows there was no fraud in Bolivia's October elections, which Evo won.

I can't access the article, so I'm posting it for those who can.

That article shows that the basis for the allegation doesn't stand up, it doesn't rule out other types of fraud.

Cool, so since the original basis was bullshit the other types probably are too, and the current coup government should be dismantled

I suggest you go there and get right on that.

 

[PyramidHead]

Evidence of a right-wing Christian fundamentalist takeover of a democratically elected government sure brings out the sour grapes. "If you like democratic representation so much, why don't you MARRY IT?!"

 

[ZiprHead]

Evidence of a right-wing Christian fundamentalist takeover of a democratically elected government sure brings out the sour grapes. "If you like democratic representation so much, why don't you MARRY IT?!"

There's an even older saying, "put your money where your mouth is".

 

[J842P]

Evidence of a right-wing Christian fundamentalist takeover of a democratically elected government sure brings out the sour grapes. "If you like democratic representation so much, why don't you MARRY IT?!"

There's an even older saying, "put your money where your mouth is".

Seriously? Liberal atheists are supporting military, theocratic coups now?

 

[ZiprHead]

Evidence of a right-wing Christian fundamentalist takeover of a democratically elected government sure brings out the sour grapes. "If you like democratic representation so much, why don't you MARRY IT?!"

There's an even older saying, "put your money where your mouth is".

Seriously? Liberal atheists are supporting military, theocratic coups now?

Nope, just tired of being lectured to do something by someone who won't do something.

 

[PyramidHead]

Seriously? Liberal atheists are supporting military, theocratic coups now?

Nope, just tired of being lectured to do something by someone who won't do something.

ZiprHead, what am I asking you to do?

 

[blastula]

PH doesn't have to go to Bolivia to have the right to comment about this.

It's more that he's a tankie that means he doesn't get to complain about coups.

 

[PyramidHead]

PH doesn't have to go to Bolivia to have the right to comment about this.

It's more that he's a tankie that means he doesn't get to complain about coups.

Liberals are incapable of seeing a means to an end as such, and can only conceive of ends in themselves, exhibit 798,455.

 

[blastula]

Tankies believe any means justify their holy dogma ends.

 

[ZiprHead]

Seriously? Liberal atheists are supporting military, theocratic coups now?

Nope, just tired of being lectured to do something by someone who won't do something.

ZiprHead, what am I asking you to do?

and the current coup government should be dismantled

That's certainly a call to action.

 

[PyramidHead]

ZiprHead, what am I asking you to do?

and the current coup government should be dismantled

That's certainly a call to action.

In the passive voice. Or are you one of those people who think "abolish ICE" protesters should either run for office or go home?